I almost got hacked!

A couple of nights ago i was watching a film with my little brother Timmy. It must have been around 11pm and i was completely relaxed munching on my Doritos with the cheesy dip. I received a notification on my phone but barely noticed it as i was really into the movie. Around half an hour later as the movie ended i checked my phone and was stunned to see a system message that said there has been a sign in on another device with my apple ID, do you allow login? Underneath there was a map of the location.. Sichuan?? I turned to Timmy and said where the hell is Sichuan? He said i think it’s in China??? But I’m in the UK!!?? What the hell??!!

Then it suddenly dawned on me and i jumped up from the sofa, Doritos flying with no attention from me! I said “oh my god some guy in China is trying to hack me!!” At this outburst Timmy literally stared at my face speechless lol, it all sounds so dramatic now going over it, but seriously that’s actually how it happened.

Anyway i then rejected the login and ran upstairs to change my password. I felt slightly better afterwards but had this uneasy feeling in my belly, i felt vulnerable and quite angry. The next morning i phoned apple and had a thorough conversation about security, trust and huge amounts of data that we can’t even physically access in the iCloud. I’ve always found the iCloud to be a mysterious ball of personal data flouting out there somewhere that annoyingly can’t be accessed to look at properly. The lady advised me to change all my details including my email address which took me almost 3 whole days! It was a very long tiring process, moving all my accounts over, including social media, banking, shopping, car insurance etc. But given the situation, i basically had no choice but to do a major privacy overhaul.

The thing is, for the last 6 months or so i have been receiving a significant amount of phishing emails. At first i found these more annoying than alarming. These fraudsters will do anything to get your personal details. I received fake emails like this from a range of companies including PayPal, Banking, Amazon, HMRC and Apple. I reported each and every email to the relevant fraud teams of each company as well as my email provider but still it’s obvious somebody managed to get my details somehow.

A huge security overhaul was the last thing i wanted to do because i knew it would be very time consuming. But honestly, my advice to anyone that is in a similar situation is do not put it off! Most people have many accounts attached to email addresses, and although it most definitely is a very long process to change all details, not everybody is as lucky as me. I only recently set up an extra layer of security on my apple ID which is the main reason i avoided being hacked.

I was discussing it with my brother Timmy and its true what he said. If i had been hacked, this idiot in Sichuan would have known my location, my banking details, seen pictures of my family and god knows what else. After spending the last 3 days securing everything i plan to be extra safe online from now on.

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6 thoughts on “I almost got hacked!”

Yup. Hacking is all to common these days. At least you were able to catch it before it happens. I don’t use my checking account on my phone. If I want to buy something online I use a prepaid money card.

I hope all your work pays off and you stay unhacked. Too scary.

Yup. Hacking is all to common these days. At least you were able to catch it before it happens. I don’t use my checking account on my phone. If I want to buy something online I use a prepaid money card.

Man, I really relate to this because I know where Sichuan is (yep, it’s in China, and it’s famous for criminally spicy food) and hacking happens A LOT in China, to Chinese people, too (because it’s happened to a ton of my friends there). You’re right–better be safe than sorry. Having all your personal info hacked would be horrifying. I hope you never have to experience it again.

Man, I really relate to this because I know where Sichuan is (yep, it’s in China, and it’s famous for criminally spicy food) and hacking happens A LOT in China, to Chinese people, too (because it’s happened to a ton of my friends there). You’re right–better be safe than sorry. Having all your personal info hacked would be horrifying. I hope you never have to experience it again.